Cruel World by Joe Hart Page B

fog.
    As the room lightened by degrees, Quinn lay on his side, his back throbbing, hand pulsing in dull strobes with each heartbeat. He stared at the wall, glancing occasionally at the painting his father had given him when he was twelve. It was a vibrant watercolor of a river valley filling with the first light of day. Rolling hills speckled with trees holding the orange and reds of fall on their branches fell down to a blue river, its surface cut by the heads of rocks peeking from its depths. His father had told him it was a real place, that he’d seen it firsthand. He’d commissioned an artist to capture it on canvas, saying that a photo wouldn’t have done it justice. You have to feel it, Quinn, and the only way to feel something that you haven’t seen in real life is through art.
    Quinn rose from the bed, his joints full of spiked rust. He hobbled across the room, his ankle flaring like a hot coal each time he put weight on it. He reached the painting and stood looking at it for a long time until the brushstrokes blended together into a haze.
    He tore the painting from the wall and flung it across the room.
    It hit the foot of his bed, the glass shattering and sprinkling the floor. The frame shifted and released its hold on the colorful canvas. The picture folded beneath itself and lay still. He breathed hard, each inhalation painful. He could still feel a giant hand squeezing his chest.
    He made his way downstairs to find the sun coating the floor in the living room gold. A cool draft leaked from the direction of the solarium and he shivered, pulling on a sweatshirt hanging in the closet. He opened a can of smoked herring and sat eating it at the counter, staring into nothing. The XDM lay beside the warm can of pop, its grip in easy reach. He would never go anywhere without it again.
    After choking down the last of the salty fish, he rinsed the can and threw it in the trash, which was almost full. It was starting to smell.
    He stood at the kitchen window looking at the puddles shining on the drive. They were splotches of blue, reflecting the faultless sky. A chill ran through him. The puddles were the same color as the thing’s eyes outside. Graham’s eyes.
    Dizziness swarmed him and the kitchen tilted. His briny breakfast made a leap for the back of his throat, but he gritted his teeth and breathed through his nose until it settled back in place. Fresh blood leaked from the makeshift bandage around his palm from gripping the counter so hard. He’d need to dress it properly. But first he had other things to do.
    On the way out the kitchen door, he paused at the junk drawer and sifted through the contents. In the very back was a small tape measure with a maximum length of twenty feet. He held it for thirty seconds before replacing it and slamming the drawer shut and heading outside.
    The day was cool despite its clarity. Quinn hugged the sweatshirt closer to him as he limped around the side of the house, waiting for the moment the solarium and the thing lying outside of it would come into view. It won’t be there. It will have regenerated somehow and dragged itself off. It’s watching you right now . The thoughts were enough to make him halt and bring the gun up from his side. He turned in a slow circle. Birds spoke somewhere in the woods, unseen in the branches. In the distance, waves crashed against rocks. When he managed to shuffle forward, the ends of pale fingers, upturned to the sky, came into view.
    It lay where it had fallen; it hadn’t moved overnight.
    Quinn approached it, going around its side to where he’d sat the night before. He’d lost track of time after seeing the earing hanging from its distended lobe and only come to when lightning struck a tree a hundred yards from the house, showering the ground with sparks that winked out like falling stars. He knelt, steadying himself with one hand on the ground as he took in the sight.
    It was even taller and skinnier than he’d thought. Its legs were